I Hate Professional Photographers! (Edit - title is a joke, to catch attention)

Hval

Well, that was an extremely interesting experience. Just back from the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony where the games were declared the "best Commonwealth Games ever".

Trying to take photos of Kylie Minogue with a handheld 600mm lens on a D800 when 200 metres or so away from her is a definite "No No". I paid £200 per seat to get the best seats possible. Who ever sold the seats (Commonwealth Games people) was taking the mickey - and that is being polite. They were not the best seats. The stadium, Hampden Park, is the worst stadium I have ever been too. The seats are tiny with absolutely no leg room what so ever. It is nigh on impossible to get to and from. The single railway station can not cope with the 52,000 plus spectators. It is a modern stadium as well. I have been there numerous times, to see people including Bruce Springsteen, Lulu, U2, Bob Dylan, Kylie Minogue, The Eagles, hundreds of bagpipers, and god knows who else. I hate that stadium. The seat in front is so close to you that you can not even put a lens hood on a 300mm lens or else you will hit the head of the person in front. I can vouch for that - as can the guy whose head I hit numerous times, until I took the lens hood off. It really doesn't help when you have a woman sitting next to you who is bigger than you, has brought three bags, is filming with her iPad, and has her dinner with her, a blanket, a pillow, and a few other comforts from home. I kept on expecting her to pull out her gas cooker.

I did take some photographs. Got plenty of flags in front of the lens, camera booms, lighting wiring, peoples heads and god knows what else. Out of 700 photographs I reckon that I will be extremely lucky if I get ten acceptable photographs.

It doesn't help when some ones decides to release sufficient dry ice to totally fog out a huge stadium, nor fire of thousands of fireworks throughout proceedings. (quick side thought - God, I don't envy professional photographers trying to get photos through that - but I forget: they are at ground level and don't see it like me, as it is above them).

This is why I envy professional photographers. Here is a photo of Kylie taken with a 70 - 200mm f2.8

Hval

One more of Kylie. Follow the photo to a few of my Commonwealth Games closing Ceremony photographs on Flickr. Oh yes, many taken with a hand held 600mm set up. Sorry for the slight fuzziness to the photos.

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spraynpray

Can't follow the photo @Hval because you didn't post the HTLM info off Flickr properly. Notice the "img src="" at the top of the image here? Shouldn't be there.

Hval

Apologies for that.

Photos are at: - https://www.flickr.com/photos/hval01/sets/72157645796411150/